Andrew Leigh

E&EO TRANSCRIPT

ABC NEWSRADIO

PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA

MONDAY, 8 FEBRUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: GST, negative gearing, income inequality, land tax, capital gains tax.

MARIUS BENSON: In the past 15 minutes, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has called on the Prime Minister to categorically rule out any increase in the Goods and Services Tax. For more on that, I’m joined by Andrew Leigh, the assistant Shadow Treasurer. Andrew Leigh, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning, Marius.

BENSON: We are, I suppose, waiting for the categorical, 100 per cent statement by the Prime Minister. But he has pretty much said: no GST. That's what he said yesterday on Insiders.

LEIGH: Well, at the same time we had Arthur Sinodinos out arguing that there ought to be an increase to the GST, Marius, so it is pretty unclear where the Government stands. All we know is that when they say they're in favour of agility, they've taken every possible position on the GST. Australians who don't want to see a rise in the GST have only one choice at the next election which is to vote Labor, because we have been absolutely clear that we wouldn't support a tax which would fail to add to growth but would worsen inequality.

BENSON: The Government has said it would make its position clear long before the election, so that won't be an issue if the Government now goes ahead as, universally expected, without a Goods and Services Tax increase. If that is the case, you would obviously welcome that decision.

LEIGH: Well clearly, but we'd also welcome a Government which engages in proper processes on tax reform. You well know, as a long-time watcher of politics, Marius, that process matters as well as outcomes. When they came to office, the Government announced a Tax White Paper in the first two years, and business and community groups put hundreds of thousands of dollars into preparing more than 800 submissions to that inquiry. That's now been junked in favour of a Prime Minister who seems to be spending more time listening to nervous backbenchers than going out there speaking to worried Australian families. It ought to be Australian families that are being heard in this process, and we ought to be allowing all that expertise in the community to flow into a tax reform process rather than simply floating thought bubbles so the backbenchers can shoot them down.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

TELEVISION INTERVIEW

SKY AM AGENDA

MONDAY, 8 FEBRUARY 2016

TOPICS: GST; superannuation tax concessions; negative gearing.

KIERAN GILBERT: With me now is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh. You've heard a bit of the debate thus far: the Prime Minister not yet convinced on the GST. Is this what a healthy, mature debate on public policy looks like?

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: I think we're learning, Kieran, what being innovative and agile involves. It involves taking every position on tax reform and then not listening to Australian families, as Labor has been, but just listening to your backbenchers. This Prime Minister has lost more ministers than he's had positive clear tax proposals. I think increasingly Australians are wondering: what does this bloke stand for? He says he's serious about climate change but he's got Tony Abbott's climate policies; he says he wants to do marriage equality but he's kicking it off to a $160 million plebiscite; and he says he wants economic leaderships but on the core issue of tax reform can't articulate a clear plan for –

GILBERT: But isn't he saying – I put it you again – isn't this a mature way to go about a discussion on tax issues? You look at all the evidence, you don't rule things out before you've even begun, and then you get on with it – unlike Labor which did not allow the Henry Tax review to even look at the GST.

LEIGH: Well Kieran, a mature approach would have been to follow through the Tax White Paper which the Government announced in 2013. It took in 800 submissions; had a $600,000 advertising campaign; millions of dollars were spent by communities and business groups putting in submissions. Now it’s been completely junked in favour of the thought bubbles that are being floated. Two completely different thought bubbles yesterday: one from the Prime Minister saying maybe not, one from Arthur Sinodinos saying maybe. It's absolutely clear that if you don't want a GST the only way to make sure it doesn’t happen is to vote Labor at the next election.

We need to improve productivity, but not by cutting penalty rates, The Guardian, 6 February

Ever since Thomas Mortimer worried that the advent of the sawmill ‘would exclude the labour of thousands of useful workmen’, progressives have had an uneasy relationship with productivity. Everyone is pleased to see technology and process improvements that make jobs safer, cleaner and less stressful. But many worry that such improvements will also shrink the number of jobs going around and make life much worse for workers who end up displaced by machines. 

At its best, this anxiety manifests in close attention to who the winners and losers are in today’s changing workforce. At worst, it results in a rose-tinted yearning for the kind of back-breaking jobs few workers ever enjoyed at the time. 

NOW TURNBULL WANTS HIGHER STATE TAXES TOO

 

For a PM who says he wants lower taxes, Malcolm Turnbull sure loves talking about raising them.

 

Fresh from a week in which his Treasurer confirmed he’s ready and willing to make the hard sell for a higher GST, Malcolm Turnbull is now talking up higher state taxes as well.

 

Speaking on Adelaide radio, the Prime Minister called on state governments to increase state charges like payroll tax and land tax to cover the $80 billion his party has cut from schools and hospitals funding.

KELLY O’DWYER: TAX CRUSADER??

It was Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer’s turn to try on the Liberals’ mask of concern about multinational tax today. Unfortunately, it was about as convincing as a pair of Groucho Glasses.            

Even the best Question Time pantomime won’t make Australians believe the Liberals really care about ensuring big multinationals pay their fair share of tax.    

That’s because their record speaks for itself.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

SKY PM AGENDA

PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA

WEDNESDAY, 3 FEBRUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: GST, tobacco excise 

DAVID SPEERS: With me now is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh. Thank you for joining us.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Pleasure, David.

SPEERS: On this spending point that Paul Keating has made today: “we need to trim our spending and not accommodate more of it by ever more taxation”. Labor is promising more taxation, more spending. 

LEIGH: There is no magic level of government spending. If you look across the advanced world, Australia sits towards the bottom of the pack. The size of government is similar to Mexico, Korea and the United States; well away from countries in Europe with 40 or 50 per cent of the economy being government.

MORRISON’S VAUDEVILLE ACT ON MULTINATIONAL TAX FOOLS NO-ONE

Perhaps to make up for Malcolm Turnbull’s suggestion yesterday that fairly taxing multinationals is “controversial”, the Treasurer came packing his best faux-outrage to Question Time today.  

Unfortunately however, he forgot his cheat sheet detailing the Coalition’s woeful record on tackling tax avoidance. As always, he attempted to bluff and bluster his way through while mangling the facts in the process. 

On Fraser becoming Fenner, City News, 3 February

FOR the past five years, I’ve been fortunate enough to represent an electorate named after the great parliamentarian Jim Fraser. But after former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser passed away last year, the Australian Electoral Commission has decided to rename the ACT seat of (Jim) Fraser, with a view to creating a new seat of (Malcolm) Fraser in Victoria.

As of this week Fraser will become Fenner; for the remarkable Australian scientist and public health advocate Frank Fenner. Here’s five fascinating things you might not know about this electorate’s new namesake.

Good govt requires more than mere memories, Canberra Times, 2 February

A little over a century ago, GK Chesterton wrote that ‘Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.’[1]

Well told, history is always more exciting than the present. In her latest Quarterly Essay, ‘Political Amnesia’, Laura Tingle demonstrates how a fine wordsmith can skip the dull bits, and compress the achievements of decades into a handful of pages. We’re treated to the best insights of the post-war economic policymakers known as the ‘Seven Dwarfs’. We hear about the creation of capital gains and fringe benefits taxes, over the objections of the naysayers. I challenge you to read Tingle’s description of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating’s achievements, and not want to carve their faces onto the side of Mt Ainslie.

MAKING MULTINATIONALS PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE IS CONTROVERSIAL? ONLY FOR MALCOLM

The more we see of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the more he reveals about his true values.

In Question Time today, Mr Turnbull flippantly described making big multinationals pay their fair share of tax as: “highly controversial”.

You read that right: the Prime Minister who is ready and willing to force a higher GST on every Australian household thinks asking some of the world’s largest companies to pay their fair share of Australian tax is a controversial move.